For the last 25 years, John Whitehead has roamed the sidelines of the Washington Township Recreational Soccer League.

It all started with his oldest son, John III, and lasted through three more — Andrew, Steven and Kevin. Despite his sons now being too old to play in the league, he still finds himself coaching today.

“He loves spending time with the guys,” said his youngest son, Kevin. “He taught everyone at home, all my brothers, but he got to inspire that many more players outside the family. He brought more gentlemen into the program and helped them, too.”

In his time coaching in the league, Whitehead has made nine different championship games, winning six of them.

But it isn’t the titles that come to mind first when Whitehead thinks about his career in Washington Township, it’s a tournament in Willingboro that he took a team to regularly in the mid 1990s.

“When we went up to the tournament, the players that came together for that weekend competed against other travel teams that were established and together all year and the all-star team we put together (that week) went up and were extremely successful,” Whitehead said. “That happened about three years in a row.”

And that wasn’t the only instance of Whitehead being able to band together a team of intramural all-stars to take on an established travel team.

“We had an all-star tournament in Washington Township in which we entered a team and we played the Washington Township travel team,” he said. “And after a 1-1 completion, one of the parents from the travel team approached me and said, ‘You’re coaching a travel team that doesn’t travel.’

“We were as good as a travel team, just didn’t travel around to other towns. Thought that was a nice compliment.”

Whitehead also has an impact on his players off the field.

There are many examples of how close he got with his players, but none better than Aaron Kelly.

“(Kelly) went though the whole program and is now helping him be an assistant,” Kevin said. “My dad tremendously affected him and took him under his wing my sophomore year, 2007. He’s always had a good connection with the players, on the field or off the field. He was so happy to be there it was contagious to the players.”

Kelly first started playing in the league when he was 10 years old. After winning in the league and for Washington Township High School, he attended Drexel starting in 1999.

Kelly is now in his eighth year helping his old coach.

After Kevin won his last title in 2009, he thought his dad was going to hang it up. But the passion still burns insides of him, so he is still coaching.

And with everything he has done for the league and accomplished as a coach, no one is complaining.

Said Kevin: “He put in a lot of time and effort within the Washington Township Recreation Program and cultivated a good environment not only for my brothers and I, but for so many players and so many people in the community.